Jon Courtenay Grimwood
Hachette
Otago Daily Times, February 26th 2011
In contrast to the hard-edged future of Paulo Bacigalupi’s Windup Girl, Jon Courtenay’ Grimwood’s The Fallen Blade is pure fantasy adventure, replete with vampires, werewolves and magic.
Set in 15th Century Venice, the novel opens on a teenage boy, Tycho, silver-shackled in an earth-strewn cell aboard a Turkish galley. Although he has no memory of who he is or where he comes from, a deeply-rooted survival instinct drives him to flee the Venetian soldiers who discover him, and he eventually washes up on the banks of the Grand Canal.
Venice at this time is an international city, one of the richest and most powerful in all of Europe. Despite this, Tycho’s silver hair, milk-white skin and inability to tolerate sunlight, mean he stands out even in such metropolitan surroundings. As memory slowly returns, it is accompanied by a strange hunger that becomes increasingly difficult to resist, further distancing him from the people around him. His unnatural speed and fighting ability eventually bring him to the attention of Atilo il Mauros, the head of the Assassini, who captures and trains him as a potential successor, a role Tycho has no desire to fill.
Atilo’s hope turns to enmity, however, when Tycho refuses to kill the leader of the kreighund, whose followers menace Venetian streets and have all but destroyed the assassins guild. This is exacerbated when his betrothed, Desdaio, intervenes on Tycho’s behalf (Atilo is a Moor, and the resemblance of names with Shakespeare’s characters is probably not coincidental). Both Atilo and Tycho are both pawns in a wider power struggle, however; the current Duke is ‘feeble-minded’, ruler in name only, with his uncle and his mother vying for control of the city. As long as both remain useful in this battle, neither can extract revenge.
My initial expectations for the book were fairly low, since vampires have been figuratively (and possibly literally) done to death in recent years. I also found Grimwood’s style frustrating at times, particularly his insistence on using full stops in place of commas, so that the writing abounds with partial sentences. The similarity of setting to ‘The Windup Girl’ (encroaching waters and squalid slums abound) didn’t help. Grimwood’s Venice lacked the tangibility and physicality of Bacigaloupi’s Bangkok, and I didn’t feel as drawn into the novelistic world.
That said, I was pleasantly surprised when the story diverged from the standard vampire vs werewolf trope to focus on the political intrigues that drive the plot. By the end of the book Tycho has learned the truth about both his nature and his reason for being, paving the way for the inevitable sequel (it is subtitled Act One of The Assassini). Despite its flaws, I am interested to see where the series goes.
https://www.odt.co.nz/entertainment/books/vehicle-comment-takes-filthy-sweltering-streets
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